The proliferation of cloud-based services and platforms continues to increase. Specifically, cloud-based content management services and platforms have impacted the way personal and corporate information is stored, and has also impacted the way personal and corporate information is shared and managed. Individuals can avail themselves of such storage and management services to store and share large volumes of personal content objects such as pictures and videos.
Enterprises (e.g., companies, firms, etc.) might also want to use cloud-based content management platforms to secure, store and manage sensitive proprietary content objects, while enhancing the experience and productivity of their workforce (e.g., active employees) and/or their customers (e.g., clients, vendors, contractors, partners, etc.). For example, the enterprise might want to provide their active employees access to the flexible provisioning (e.g., access, roles, sharing, etc.) and collaboration components (e.g., tasks, comments, workflow, etc.) delivered by a content management platform provider.
Further, the enterprise might want to control and manage the user experience when accessing a cloud-based content management platform, and further, might want to control and manage the user experience when users access the services provided by various other software applications as might be provided or sanctioned by the enterprise. For example, the enterprise might want to provide a “single sign-on” (e.g., SSO) feature to provide active employees the convenience of just one authentication and authorization process to access the broad range of such software applications provided or sanctioned by the enterprise. As another example, the enterprise might want to further improve the user experience by providing personalized online access to a cloud-based content management platform by delivering online content, provisioning, and other experience characteristics specific to a given user. In some cases, the enterprise might want to dynamically establish characteristics of content access and/or dynamically manage a user's experience in doing so (e.g., by provisioning at the time of the request). To accurately, securely and effectively provide such user experiences, the current user information known by the enterprise (e.g., in an active directory) needs to be also known to the cloud-based content management platform at the time of the request. However, challenges can arise for an enterprise when availing current user information to a cloud-based content management platform and/or when availing current user information to other services and applications.
Legacy approaches to ensuring availability of current user information to enable convenient and personalized online user experiences (e.g., online content access provisioning) have several technological limitations. In one legacy approach, the cloud-based content management platform can continually poll the enterprise active directory for the most current user information. Such an approach can require significant computing resources to perform the polling, yet still might suffer from the effects of using unsynchronized information that can happen due to delays between polls, open sessions, and other reasons. Another legacy approach might require a dedicated computing platform to push new user information from the enterprise to the cloud-based content management platform and/or to other approved applications and services. Such an approach might require the enterprise (e.g., account administrators, IT systems, etc.) to apply different technologies and protocols among the many approved services and applications, which in turn can demand employment of significant computing resources as well as employment of human resources.
What is needed is a technique or techniques to improve the application and efficacy of various technologies as compared with the application and efficacy of legacy approaches.